Brilliant Change in Foodstamp Policy

[Tama]

In October, the way SNAP/food stamp bennies will be distributed in my state is as follows:

If your card ends in X, Y, or Z number, you still get yours on the 1st of the month.

If your card ends in A, B, or C number, you get yours on the 4th.

If D, E, or F number, the 7th.

If Q or R number, the 9th. (I do not remember the number/scale precisely)

This is the best change ever for foodstamps as it pertains to cashiers at Malmart! No longer will one poor sod have to check out 10 people with 100 food items each on the smokes aisle because management has no other cashiers scheduled.

Hooray!

[Food Lady]

It's already like that here. Well, for foodshare. If you mean by food stamps WIC, then we are behind the times, I think--still everyone on the one day. I've never had to check out someone on the stamps; I've never seen one of those books. We don't accept them. But we take the foodshare card, which doesn't, for the most part, tell you what to buy. (For some reason I couldn't get protein bars. I guess they were considered supplements, not food. I replaced meals with them when busy, but had to pay out of pocket.) I can see how frustrating it would be when the customer would come up to till with the wrong-sized cereal or whatever. What a pain.

[Tama]

We still call it foodstamps here, even though they give you a little debit-card looking thing now. Habit, I guess.

[crazyofficeclerk]

That is the way ours are now. Now, however, instead of having one or two days of chaos, we have a week or more of large orders. Management doesn't get it and cuts hours after the 3rd so we have less help and the same amount of business. Also, heaven help you when the switch first happens. The customers couldn't handle the switch and would come on the old schedule and we had to put back carts of groceries because their foodstamps hadn't come in. Lots of yelling also occurred.